Such statements send social media into conniptions, and comments quickly degenerate into satirical discussions of how you should never believe anything scientists say, as they just make it up anyway.

Science, it is often suggested, is little different to religion, with the current clergy awaiting the latest proclamation from the giants in the field. And, in modern physics, you do not get much more of a giant than Stephen Hawking. But what does this new pronouncement mean? Are textbooks to be rewritten, something that would put an immense smile on textbook publishers?

To answer, we need to take a step back and look at what we mean by black holes, and work out where Hawking's problems begin.

A classical black hole

In 1915, Einstein derived the equations of general relativity, revolutionising our view of gravity. While Einstein struggled with his equations, the German physicist Karl Schwarzschild was able to use them to determine the gravitational field outside of a spherical distribution of mass.

But the conclusions of Schwarzschild were rather frightening, predicting that objects could completely collapse, with mass crashing down to a central "singularity", surrounded by a gravitational field from which even light cannot escape. For any black hole, the delineation between light escaping and being trapped is a well-defined surface – the event horizon – separating our universe from the mysteries close to the black hole.

With this, the notion of the "classical" black hole was born, governed purely by the equations of general relativity. But while we know general relativity governs the force of gravity, the early 20th century saw a revolution in the understanding of the other fundamental forces, describing them in exquisite detail in terms of quantum mechanics.

A quantum leap

But the problem is that general relativity and quantum mechanics just don't play well together. Simply put, the equations of quantum mechanics can't describe gravity, whereas general relativity can only handle gravity.

To talk about them both in situations where gravity is strong and quantum mechanics cannot be ignored, the best we can do at the moment is sticky-tape the equations together. Until we have a unified theory of gravity and the other forces, this is the best we can do.

Stephen Hawking undertook one of the most famous attempts at this in the early 1970s. He wondered about what was happening at the event horizon in terms of quantum mechanics, where empty space is a seething mass of particles popping in and out of existence. At the horizon, this process separates particles, with some sucked into the central singularity, while their partners escape into space.

What Hawking showed is, through a jerry-rigged version of gravity and quantum mechanics, black holes leak radiation into space, slowly sucking energy from their gravitational core, and that, given enough time, black holes evaporate completely into radiation. When quantum mechanics is thrown into the mix, the notion of a "classical black hole" is dead.

There is, however, a bigger problem in including quantum mechanics into the study of gravity, and that problem is information.

Quantum mechanics cares intensely about information, and worries about the detailed make-up of an object like a teapot: how many protons are there, and electrons, and where are they; they care about the fact that a teapot is a teapot, a particular arrangement of electrons and protons, which is different to something else, like a light beam or a sofa.

When the teapot is thrown into a black hole, it is complete destroyed, first smashed into a million pieces, then atomised, and then the atoms ripped into their constituent parts, before being absorbed into central singularity.

But the radiation that Hawking predicted being emitted from black holes doesn't contain any information of what fell in; no matter how well you examine the radiation, you can't tell if it was a teapot, a fridge or a small iguana called Colin that met their demise.

To many, this seems like a trivial matter. But in reality, quantum mechanics is the study of information, tracing the flow and interaction of fundamental bits of information in the Universe.

Erasing information, therefore, is a very big deal, and in recent years researchers have examined various ways in which the information swallowed by a black hole is somehow preserved.

Pushing boundaries

It must be remembered that we are now pushing the boundaries of modern physics and, as we do not have a single mathematical framework where gravity and quantum mechanics play nicely together, we have to worry a little about how we have glued the two pieces together.

In 2012, the problem was revisited by US physicist Joseph Polchinski. He examined the production of Hawking radiation near the event horizon of a black hole, watching how pairs of particles born from the quantum vacuum separate, with one lost irretrievably into the hole, while the other flies off into free space.

With a little mathematical trickery, Polchinski asked the question: "What if the information of the infalling particle is not lost into the hole, but is somehow imprinted on the escaping radiation?"

Like the breaking of atomic bonds, this reassignment of information proves to be very energetic, surrounding a black hole with a "firewall", through which infalling particles have to pass. As the name suggests, such a firewall will roast Colin the iguana to a crisp. But at least information is not lost.

While presenting a possible solution, many are bothered by its consequences of the existence of a firewall and that Colin will notice a rapid increase in temperature, he will know he is at the event horizon. This goes against one of the key tenets of general relativity, namely that an infalling observer should happily sail through the event horizon without noticing that it is there.

Back to Hawking

This is where Hawking's recent paper comes in, suggesting that when you further stir the quantum mechanics into general relativity, the seething mass of the vacuum prevents the formation of a crisp, well-defined event horizon, replacing with a more ephemeral "apparent horizon".

This apparent horizon does the job of an event horizon, trapping matter and radiation within the black hole, but this trapping is only temporary, and eventually the matter and radiation are released carrying their stored information with them.

As black holes no longer need to leak information back into space, but can now release it in a final burst when they have fully evaporated, there is no need to have a firewall and an infalling observer will again have a roast-free ride into the black hole.

Are black holes no more?

To astronomers, the mess of fundamental physics at the event horizon has little to do with the immense gravitational fields produced by these mass sinks at the cores of galaxies, powering some of the most energetic processes in the universe. Astrophysical black holes still happily exist.

What Hawking is saying is that, with quantum mechanics included, the notion of a black hole as governed purely by the equations of general relativity, the "classical black hole", does not exist, and the event horizon, the boundary between escape and no-escape, is more complex than we previously thought. But we've had inklings of this for more than 40 years since his original work on the issue.

But one last vexing question – is Hawking right? I started this article by noting that science is often compared to religion, with practitioners awaiting pronouncements from on high, all falling into line with the latest dogma.

But that's not the way science works, and it is important to remember that, while Hawking is clearly very smart – to quote the immortal Tammy Wynette in Stand By Your Man, "after all, he's just a man" – and just because he says something does not make it so.

Hawking's proposed solution is clever, but the debate on the true nature of black holes will continue to rage. I'm sure they will continuously change their spots, and their properties will become more and more head-scratchingly weird, but this is the way that science works, and that's what makes it wonderful.

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Difference to religion, though, is that the new apparent horizon does make prediction which can be (eventually) tested. So we shouldn't make it out as if something like this has to be taken on belief. It doesn't have to be taken at all. Right now it's a hypothesis. No more, but also no less.The thing that sets it apart from mere speculation/brainfarting so often found on internet comment sections is that it is a self consistent hypothesis formulated within two very successful frameworks (GR and QM). While that is less than 'definite proof' it makes it a lot more than 'mere opinion' (or 'pronouncement from on high').

As a side note: I tried reading the paper on arxivhttp://arxiv.org/...61v1.pdf...but he lost me somewhere pretty soon. What I got out of it is that the CPT symmetry seems to be pretty vexing (black holes could spontaneously form/unform). Anyone get more out of that/understand it to a greater extent?

Science and religion couldn't be fundamentally further apart. Scientists generally acknowledge that our theories are incomplete based off of our current capabilities. Religion is defined by a rigid set of beliefs that is never changed no matter how obviously wrong they are.

"In reality, the headlines should not be "black holes don't exist" but "black holes are more complicated than we thought, but we are not going to really know how complicated until gravity and quantum mechanics try to get along"."

-Hawking has become a media whore, releasing incendiary press releases and selling books. Can we blame him? The public want to hear from scientists but in reality can't be expected to understand what they're doing, which only annoys them.

So science offers them stage shows like hawking and Einstein and Dawkins and neil degrasse Tyson who make them smile and say 'wow'. And soon enough they follow their train of thought somewhere else, and everybody's happy.

These guys aren't there to educate the public. That would be impossible. They're there to placate the public, to make science comfortable for them.

These guys aren't there to educate the public. That would be impossible. They're there to placate the public, to make science comfortable for them.

Why is this such a bad thing? So leave science to the few with technical understanding of the mathematics behind the theories?

We (John Q. Taxpayer) do have a passive role in this. Sure there likely are people who seek media attention, but there also is a place for people who can bridge the divide between high level academia and the average lay person.

Not all of us lemmings follow the charismatic leader off the cliff. But implying our feeble minds will never comprehend this stuff is hardly any better.

The gravity is so strong at the "surface" of a black hole that it splits virtual particle pairs in half, virtual particle pairs that appear everywhere in the spacetime continuum. So you are taking zero-point energy (the source of the pairs) and getting energy/mass from it. That would be called perpetual motion of the first kind because you are extracting energy from a place where there can be no energy to extract, so black hole evaporation was a bad idea from the start. Furthermore, while evaporation would increase matter/energy levels in the local spacetime continuum, it would be at the expense of decreasing the scalar level of zero point energy, e.g. -- zero-point energy would become negative. That's interesting because it would imply that a black hole has a zero-point energy LOWER than the minimum of its classical potential well, thereby negating the Uncertainty Principle. Its time to rethink black holes all over again, but this time, do it right. Gray holes just won't do.

The same situation as always, "science" claims to be self testing, never to be so definite, yet no "scientist" ever questions headlines or claims that a "theory" is absolutely, unquestionably right. They didn't do it when Hawking first talked about "evaporating" black holes in the '70's. That was the only model, they said it did happen, not that that is one assertion. Alternates were never discussed. How many, concerned about the interplay between this universe and that inside the black hole, for example, considered that the geometry at the surface of the black hole twisted so that random, uncontrolled photon decays only occurred perpendicular to the horizon, particles never dropping into the horizon?

And note the elephant in the room, the other assertion depicted as so automatic, so natural as to be unquestioned, namely that the structure of a black hole must allow information across. It's taken for granted, no disclaimer is provided that this is what the "scientists" want to be the case, not something they have proved must be the case! They demand that such and such be true and build their lies about nature around those demands! The issue of the "firewall" dissipates if you do not demand that information automatically filter out!

ar18: the "virtual particle pair" view of Hawking radiation is just a picture scientists try to give to the public. It is not the scientific description proper, which is more that "when you do QFT in the presence of strongly curved space-time, you get radiation."

These who are saying, the black holes have event horizon are right. These who are saying, this event horizon enables the exchanging of information with outside are right as well. These who are saying, the escaping of information from black hole is impossible because of firewall are correct as well. These who are saying, the exchange of information can bypass firewall with worm holes are correct as well. These who are saying (like Stephen Hawking), that the worm holes aren't necessary for escaping of information from event horizon, its fluctuations are enough for it are correct as well. Stephen Hawking didn't even wrote any math to support his opinion. This is the end of classical deterministic physics, as we know it.

The work of Frank Atkinson - The Tempo Field Theory - predicts that there are no black holes and that the speed of light is constant.What will it take for the scientific community to do a critical review of his work?

What will it take for the scientific community to do a critical review of his work?

@bstanley3from what i understand: it most likely it would take submission of papers to a reputable source for publication and peer reviewthis submission would most likely require the author to generate a hypothesis, with data and experimentation, the use of references to back up certain claims, and then the hypothesis would have to make certain predictions that can be verified and supported by experimental/observational evidence

the author would have to defend his position with valid science and not just speculate

if I missed anything, I am sure someone will fill in the gaps or let me know

Just read a bit about that book you are advertising Bstanley3. I loved how that guy predicts that active galactic nuclei will emit radio waves. Urrr hang on a minute. PREDICT???? We have known this fact for a VERY LONG TIME, we call these things QUASARS.

So you are taking zero-point energy (the source of the pairs) and getting energy/mass from it. That would be called perpetual motion of the first kind because you are extracting energy from a place where there can be no energy to extract

Not quite, as the black hole evaporates throug this process. It's just a very efficient energy conversion (gravitational potential to particles). There is energy to extract there in the gravitational gradient. (Note how this process doesn't happen in flat space - as there there really is no energy potential to work off of). It's a finite process as at some point the black hole will be 'used up' - and then the process will stop. No perpetual motion here at all.

Your conclusion about the black hole having a lower than zero point energy is flawed.

The public want to hear from scientists but in reality can't be expected to understand what they're doing, which only annoys them

The scientists itself are confused too. You shouldn't believe that the Hawking proclamations are accepted universally inside of scientific community.

Hawking has become a media whore, releasing incendiary press releases and selling books

This is correct and I don't like it too - but it still doesn't disprove, what he says, sorry. He just says the stuffs, for which I was downvoted here many years, because the top physicists now reached the same level of understanding, which I have. It's not about equations - after all, Hawking doesn't use any equations in his reasoning. He just uses the very same method, I do.

I got out of it is that the CPT symmetry seems to be pretty vexing.

The black holes violate the CPT symmetry as a whole too. The massive body cannot reemerge from BH once it gets swallowed

The problem with classical black hole in dense ae ther model is, the gravity field is produced with shielding of scalar waves of vacuum. This shielding is the more intensive, the more dense the object is, OK - but it considers certain object size too. The pin point singularity cannot shield anything, so it cannot create gravity field around itself. The same conclusion we can get from general relativity too. In general relativity the curved space-time has some energy density attributed. The energy density can be expressed like the mass density by matter-energy equivalence. The space-time gets curved the more, the smaller massive body is. Bellow certain size the curvature of space-time will get so high, that the equivalent density of space-time will exceed the mass density of object itself - which would violate the buyoancy condition. The space-time will get a tendency to drown bellow surface of massive body, which curved it and the object will change into undulating quantum wave.

Under such a situation the undulating physical surface of dense object will play a role of its event horizon. It will serve as a firewall too, because another massive bodies falling into it will get dissolved in it, once they will touch it. But because it's undulating, the event horizon will not be compact. The momentarily less curved space-time at this place will allow some energy escaping, so that this object may radiate the bursts of energy. At the case of rotating black holes their physical surface will get a shape of torus and the central hole will radiate the energy nearly continuously. It just means that black hole jets can be produced with black hole itself, they don't require any falling of massive body into it. You may think about it like about exaggerated case of gravitational brightening of massive rotating stars at their poles. At the equator these stars are getting dimmed instead - well, and at the case of black holes these effects are just much more pronounced.

The whole conceptual shift therefore is, the black holes don't differ from another dense stars so much, just their gravitational behavior (lensing, brightening at poles and dimming at equator) will get much more pronounced. They may radiate energy continuously at poles and occasionally produce energy bursts in form of gamma rays and neutrinos. This will lead into much faster evaporation of black hole mass, than the classical theory allows. The observational result will be, the black holes inside of old large galaxies are much smaller and quieter, than the black holes inside of young galaxies, which are still evaporating their matter wildly.

You may think about it like about Hawking radiation of the locally curved space-time around black hole, which gets wrinkled with quantum space-time undulations there. When this curvature will get high occasionally then this local place of event horizon will radiate energy as intensively, as the black hole of the same diameter.

The consequence of this behavior for example is, if we place a tiny particle (like the proton) into gravity field of black hole at it proximity, it will radiate the Hawking radiation as intensively, like the black hole of the same diameter and it will evaporate fast. As the result, the black holes aren't so opportunistic eaters, as the classical theory considers. Most of matter will evaporate into radiation before it could even reach their event horizon - so that the black holes may grow only with black hole mergers, which are quite rare. This explains, why we can observe so few black holes of the average size (few hundreds or thousands of solar mass). It implies too, most of black holes (both small, both large ones) were formed with gravitational collapse in one step process - not with gradual accretion of matter. This indeed exerts the stress to the contemporary cosmological model, in which all matter has been formed with accretion from finely diluted state.

The dense (luminiferous) aether model differs from sparse thin aether of preEinsteinian era in the same way, like the water surface differs from Brownian noise at the water surface. The dense aether model predicts sorta opposite (dual) results, than the sparse aether. For example it predicts zero result for M-M experiments at the case of microwave light (similar to CMBR radiation) or fast rotating interferometer. These conditions are just used in recent attempts for replication of M-M experiment, so that the physicists have no chance to detect it. IMO the motion of Earth through vacuum could be detected with forces acting to superconductors/graphene or magnets in "monopole" arrangement much more conclusively, because just these materials are sensitive to vacuum fluctuations, i.e. the "sparse aether" as you probably imagine it.

you mean like a search for an anisotropy of the resonance frequencies of electromagnetic cavities??better re-read those links I left above

resonator experiments have confirmed the absence of any aether wind at the 10−17 level.[2][3] Together with the Ives–Stilwell and Kennedy–Thorndike experiments, the Michelson–Morley experiment forms one of the

Combining the results of those three experiments, the complete Lorentz transformation can be derived.from the link

if you are going to make a claim, use links from reputable sites to support it

We are bellow article about subject, which never passed the peer-review scrutiny, the experimental evidence the less. Whole the firewall and dynamic event horizon stuffs are still the speculative things - no matter how logical they may appear for someone. We shouldn't forget, even the existence of black holes as such is inconclusive - we never observed them directly. All the effects observed with astronomers so-far could be attributed to large massive objects without event horizon or with clusters of neutron stars etc...

We are bellow article about subject, which never passed the peer-review. Whole the firewall and dynamic event horizon stuffs are speculative things, no matter how logical they may appear for someone

@zephyrAND...from the article above

In reality, the headlines should not be "black holes don't exist" but "black holes are more complicated than we thought, but we are not going to really know how complicated until gravity and quantum mechanics try to get along".

then... READ THE LAST THREE PARAGRAPHS

now... about your comments... they are speculation and not based on scienceespecially with the origins firmly in aether theory, it is pseudoscience crackpottery

i am not saying that a person cannot have an opinion, but your speculations use a known debunked hypothesis in an attempt to lend some twisted authenticity to its irrationality

leave the aether at home

there is plenty of speculation about this topic without throwing in the crackpot pseudoscience

@Captain Stumpy LOL, your conviction will get beaten quite hardly in near future - I'm just preparing you for it in advance. At any case, the case of black holes can be falsified simply with quantum mechanics, which gives opposite predictions for material objects, than the general relativity. In general relativity everything collapses, in quantum mechanics every wave packet expands into infinity, so that the best approach is simply to average both models for to achieve the steady-state solution. For me it's surprising, nobody did attempt to reformulate the uncertainty principle for extremely curved space-time, where the light is propagating very slowly from extrinsic perspective. The uncertainty principle would violate the compactification of heavy objects into small volume and it would lead into their intrinsic fuzziness in a way, which Hawking and some string theorists predict ("fuzzballs").

The theory of Hawking radiation was derived for uncertainty principle valid at the event horizont. But this is not where we are observing it - we are observing it at distance, where the gravitational time dilatation applies and everything happens sooo slowly. This will lead both into both sharp increase of frequency of Hawking radiation, both its intensity. This misinterpretation is the typical example of mixing of extrinsic and intrinsic perspectives in formal physics. That is to say, the quantum mechanics was applied correctly, but inconsequentially with respect to general relativity.

I dont particularly care one way or the other right at the moment

To be perfectly honest, you don't care about any argument, which the people are presenting here - so why you're attempting to discuss with them? You must already know, I don't care about religious opinion of ignorant trolls.

The problem is, the valid science always evolves in a way of invalidation of previously valid theories, so what you actually don't care about is the evolution of valid science - that's the whole problem of yours. Your attitude can be understood only from religious perspective of rigid textbook physics of teacher, who is lazy/incompetent enough for to learn new stuffs.

until the maths support this paper, or go against this paper, i will wait

The Hawking's deductions are based on chaotic event horizon model, so you could wait quite long time for it. I've no problem with it in particular case of yours, but the scientists are payed for money at timely basis so we shouldn't allow them some waiting. They should work on it at proactive basis.

so what you actually don't care about is the evolution of valid science

in this you are terribly wrong

- that's the whole problem of yours. Your attitude can be understood only from religious perspective of rigid textbook physics of teacher, who is lazy/incompetent enough for to learn new stuffs

wrong againI was an investigator and that is how I tend to view thingsI have seen many a con man. Words are uselessthere is ONLY PROOFand VALID SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCEthe problem REALLY is that you think that you are some authority with some new gift of insight that the world physicists have somehow overlooked. This is a sign of mental issues.If I were lazy/incompetent, I would not be able to so easily refute anything you said, especially if there was any validity to your claims (like your Orbo machine)

you obviously have some intelligence, why cant you see that aether is proven false?if it had any validity, there would not be so much evidence against it

The chaotic models of event horizon are here about some time already in context of string theory. The string theory is intrinsically just a random model generator by itself, so it's not so strange, it has no problem with formal description of chaotic event horizon of black hole. Mr. Hawking is not so original or revolutionary, as the popular science editors (who are having a memory of tropical fish) are pretending.

it means that they are paid to do a job

Yes, the scientists are payed for progress in science, i.e. for falsification of established theories, i.e. for invalidation of valid science. As Feynman has said: "the research is, if you don't know, what you're actually doing" - which means, you cannot even know, if it's a science, valid the less. Everything else is not a science, but a stamp collecting.

The chaotic models of event horizon are here about some time already in context of string theory. The string theory is intrinsically just a random model generator by itself, so it's not so strange, it has no problem with formal description of chaotic event horizon of black hole. Mr. Hawking is not so original or revolutionary, as the popular science editors (who are having a memory of tropical fish) are pretending

@zephyrIMHO- the only reason that this was so highly publicized was because it was Hawking.Given Hawking's work in the past on Black Holes, this was just something to latch on to and blow out of proportion (and generate some misunderstanding) on the media's part.

I'm wondering how some more serious candidates for unifying QM and Relativity, like String theory or Super gravity make out of this. Even if we cannot prove those theories right now, it should be possible to apply and it should still predict something about this, right?

Besides what the supposedly unifying theories tell about black holes, the mere idea it should predict something sensible would indicate some kind of validity to the theories too.

Well... at least in my layman mind it would. I'd appreciate someone's comment who's more into this matter.

There is very density concentration who also expanding all a time and from inside this very density concentration pushing out very density expanding densers "who" dont interactive with our expanding machine and thats why our expanding machine cant register this expanding densers who recycling all a time with other same kind of expanding densers some expanding thing!

So. all visible stuff is from galaxys centre supermassive concentrations "who" expanding all a time!

Very density expanding densers pushing out this galaxys centre supermassive expanding concentration and this densers have a nature of visible expanding atoms, if some outside expanding movement get them expanding faster!

In the present work we suggest a non-local generalization of quantum theory which includes the quantum theory as a particular case. On the basis of the idea, that Planck constant is an adiabatic invariant of free electromagnetic field, we calculate the value of Plank constant from first principles, namely from the geometry of our Universe. The basic nature of the quantum theory is discussed. The nature of the dark energy is revealed. Within the framework of the Einstein – Cartan theory, the expression for the blackbody spectrum is obtained.

Total layman's question here. Why is the destruction of a teapot in a black hole different from the destruction of a teapot in, say, a nuclear explosion? I don't see how anyone could recover the information that a teapot was destroyed by a nuke? Isn't the loss of information part of what results from entropy?

Total layman's question here. Why is the destruction of a teapot in a black hole different from the destruction of a teapot in, say, a nuclear explosion? I don't see how anyone could recover the information that a teapot was destroyed by a nuke? Isn't the loss of information part of what results from entropy?

Info still there, just in a different form (spread out over a LOT bigger distance...:-))

destruction of a teapot in a black hole different from the destruction of a teapot in, say, a nuclear explosion

Nuclear explosion only decompose the teapot into atoms, which can still be collected and used for later identification of teapot. The black hole would dissolve even atoms and their protons and neutrons into radiation, which completely wipes out the info about composition or even existence of teapot in the past.

11791

destruction of a teapot in a black hole different from the destruction of a teapot in, say, a nuclear explosion

Nuclear explosion only decompose the teapot into atoms, which can still be collected and used for later identification of teapot. The black hole would dissolve even atoms and their protons and neutrons into radiation, which completely wipes out the info about composition or even existence of teapot in the past.

Doesn't the radiation impart information? Are the quarks destroyed? Has the energy been destroyed?

Yes, if the energy released will be completely swallowed with black hole. This is just the stuff, which Hawking is trying to prove/explain with this article. The complete evolution of his models is here. The Hawking radiation was the first attempt in this direction.

"the conclusions of Schwarzschild were rather frightening, predicting that objects could completely collapse, with mass crashing down to a central "singularity", surrounded by a gravitational field from which even light cannot escape. "

At least Hawking will have his name attached to Hawking Radiation for posterity. That's more than I can say for anyone else posting here

As I see it, Hawking radiation is analogous to synchrotron radiation (hope you all know what analogous means) in that you find out that when you push the envelope, you are stirring up a hornet's nest. Reality is a contained realm which it is possible to get out of, so the concept of losing information is valid, since placing so much stress on matter returns it to the primordial soup of pre-particle physics, only, we are seeing it imprint on what is already real, and it manifests as Hawking radiation.

It follows from his solution. The Schwarzschild solution has a singularity at r = 0 and r = rs; some of the metric components "blow up" at these radii. The singularity at event horizon divides the Schwarzschild coordinates in two causally disconnected patches and the Schwarzschild coordinates give no physical connection between the two patches, which may be viewed as a two separate solutions.

As per example of the "teapot" : Question : If I place the teapot in the path of an extremely powerful - say- laser - and vapourize it within a second, where exactly is the "information" that (presumably) was encoded in that teapot actually being preserved?

In the envelope and spectrum of photons radiated, I guess...;-) But if the energy density of such an laser wouldn't differ from energy density of black hole, then these two evaporations should be equivalent with respect to destruction of the information contained within teapot. The spectrum of such photons wouldn't differ from black body spectrum without lines, after then. But the black hole would swallow most of this radiation in addition.

What does the matter inside the BH look like? If mass spreads out uniformly inside the BH, then there is no horizon, hence another type of grey hole. It may happen when matter couples to the curvature.

Scientists generally acknowledge that our theories are incomplete based off of our current capabilities. Religion is defined by a rigid set of beliefs that is never changed no matter how obviously wrong they are.

Yes at present the Pope is more open-minded to new information that challenges church dogma, than any mainstream theoretical physicist is to considering new information that challenges accepted physics-dogma. Try and argue that Cooper Pairs are not required for superconduction to occur: No matter how logical you argument is, it will NOT be published. You will be hounded as a crackpot in a manner that makes the Spanish inquisition seems reasonable.

You are correct: At present theoretical physics and religion are miles apart, since modern theoretical physicsists will NEVER admit that their theories, which are in text books and for which Nobel Prizes have been awarded, might be wrong! There is a better chance that church-leaders will admit to having been wrong.

What does the matter inside the BH look like? If mass spreads out uniformly inside the BH, then there is no horizon, hence another type of grey hole. It may happen when matter couples to the curvature.

Since time dilation approaches infinity within the horizon of a black hole, I would expect that from any reference frame within normal space-time you'd have something about the size of the core of the star which collapsed in the center of it(whatever size it was when time stopped for it) surrounded by a relatively foamy structure consisting of everything that fell into the BH after the fact. As matter falls in, mass increases, horizon radius increases, and the point at which time dilation takes hold also increases in radius, effectively trapping new stuff on the outside. At least as long as stuff is falling into it faster than it's "evaporating".

Just my take on it.

And Johan, you are treated like a crackpot because you ARE a crackpot. How's that for logical argument?

All my claims in physics have been quantified and fitted to experimental data and placed on record under my own name; since I am not a scoundrel without any integrity who hides behind anonymity. Not a SINGLE mainstream scientist came up with any arguments or experimental data during the past 10 years that proved me wrong. It should be easy to do the latter if I am a crackpot.

You, in contrast, hide behind anonymity, and post arguments, like "quantum foam" which you cannot quantify or substantiate by experiment; and time-dilation which does not exist.Only non-simultaneity of events are observed: Although this seems like "time-dilation" only a moron will believe that it actually is time-dilation. So who is the actual crackpot?

You are are clearly a despicable person who has no self-esteem and decency. Are, or were your parents the same? Must be, since such collossal stupidity is usually inhereted.

Osteta

'..wondering how some more serious candidates for unifying QM and Relativity, like String theory or Super gravity make out of this. Even if we cannot prove those theories right now, it should be possible to apply and it should still predict something about this, right?

Besides what the supposedly unifying theories tell about black holes, the mere idea it should predict something sensible would indicate some kind of validity to the theories too."

after all, it's the realm where those unifying or quantum gravity theories are supposed to come in to play...

Prof. Hawking's paper addresses a long standing concern of mine that stems from relativity. How exactly does a singularity form if the event horizon defines the point where the acceleration of gravity exceeds the speed of light? Relativity would say that it forms in due course, with 'due course' meaning an infinite time from now. There should be no way for an acceleration to act on an object that is already moving at the speed of light without time dilation stretching the next event into infinity.

Within the black hole it is still the instant of the progenitor collapse event, mashed up with the spacetime instants of every object crossing the horizon. Talk about quantum confusion! The singularity is perpetually forming, and Hawking radiation ensures it can't, even if eternity stretches out ahead. Instead, the teapot should encounter the event horizon and immediately experience the destructive end of the black hole, even if that is 10^40 years off.

Science and religion couldn't be fundamentally further apart. Scientists generally acknowledge that our theories are incomplete based off of our current capabilities. Religion is defined by a rigid set of beliefs that is never changed no matter how obviously wrong they are.

False. Religious beliefs are adapted according to the whim of church leaders. In the second synod of Constantinople (553) all references that Jesus Christ made to reincarnation (an important concept to JC and his followers) were removed from the New Testament, and any who continued to promote the concept were excommunicated.

The first writings that became the Koran were not put to paper until over two centuries after Mohammed's death (he never learned to read and write), and continued well into the next millennium. New ideas and teachings were introduced as, and when, deemed suitable by the contemporary mullahs, a process which continues to this day.

Relativity would say that it forms in due course, with 'due course' meaning an infinite time from now

The whole stuff of apparent and actual horizon may become even more complex, when the limited age of observable universe will be taken into account. The apparent speed of light spreading is the more slower, the more the vacuum is dense around black hole, or the more the space-time gets curved with it. If the travel of object into black hole would take a longer time, than the age of the observable universe, than the object may not reach the event horizon at all or vice-versa: the interior of black hole will get older than the exterior of it. My impression is, that many giant black holes (like these in Abel galactic cluster) are older than the observable universe from this perspective. That is to say, even if they were formed with collision of black holes within timespan of observable universe, these black holes were already formed in previous generations of it.

The scientists follow their leaders as well, because mainstream science is driven with meritocracy instead of democracy. After all, this discussion here just illustrates it clearly: most of ideas which Hawking presented in his essay were already expressed with someone somewhere else. But nobody did take care of it, because these derivations were both too technical, both non-authoritative ones.

Now Hawking after few years of hiatus comes out and he writes a single two page article without equations - and everyone gets excited with it and considers it seriously just because without math this stuff it's finally understandable ...and because of Hawking's icon...;-) I can assure you, not every physicist, who worked hard on the same subject got impressed with this outcome.

The meritocratic character of many concepts in science has been documented with time evolution of constants, like the Hubble constant or charge of electron. When Millikan first measured it, everyone got so impressed with it, that the first (obviously wrong) results were rectified quite slowly. Nobody apparently wanted to contradict the Millikan's authority.

cometboy: you misunderstand what an event horizon is. An event horizon is the set of all points for which the future (of any real particle) can *only* point inwards toward the center of the black hole. Gravitational acceleration can in fact be fairly weak at the event horizon for very large black holes.

I do not think Dr Hawking uses words lightly and probably knew that people would make fun of his affirmation; he surely experienced that before. His declaration came in time to demystify these objects. We demystified the atom many years ago; the Bohr model is still used but, only as simplification, mainly to explain the concept to children. The same way, it is more than time that we redefine the concept of these objects in the public mind. These 'Hawking astronomical objects' are no more the gargantuan objects that were described by Karl Schwarzschild.

"This apparent horizon does the job of an event horizon, trapping matter and radiation within the black hole, but this trapping is only temporary, and eventually the matter and radiation are released carrying their stored information with them.""As black holes no longer need to leak information back into space, ...">> I don't understand the last sentence.

mohammadshafiq_khan_1

Feb 25, 2014

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